Baltimore director predicts activists will lean into history for radical change

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Irish director Joe Lawlor said his film Baltimore – about heiress-turned-IRA mastermind Rose Dugdale – has modern connotations with groups such as Extinction Rebellion UK and Just Stop Oil who he suggests will become “more militant” in time.The film from Lawlor and his wife Christine Molloy focuses on the aftermath of the art heist considered to be the largest in history by former debutante Rose in the name of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).Actress Imogen Poots plays the ringleader of the 1974 heist at the private estate Russborough House in Ireland’s County Wicklow, where the group stole 19 priceless paintings.Speaking about the character, Lawlor told the PA news agency at the London Film Festival: “If I think about Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil, I can easily see how people, particularly around the climate, will incrementally become more and more militant.“I think that’s going to be at the sharp end of action, because it really isn’t changing as fast as it should, so don’t be surprised if people lean into history in the 60s and 70s, it can still instruct and help people to realise that we may well be and are already running out of time.“It may well be that radical action is the only thing that’s going to really focus people’s attention.“So I do think (the film) speaks to today, very loudly and very clearly, we have lost that gear.

But that gear is being found again, and there was a real lack of it.“But I think people will become more and more frustrated.”Molloy said that Rose Dugdale’s actions came out of “something very principled”.“When Rose Dugdale began her involvement with the IRA, it began as a civil rights movement to improve the lives of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland,” the director said.“Sh